Community Service is voluntary work intended to help people in particular areas of need, whether it be for economic, social, political, or other purposes. I highly stress the word voluntary when speaking about community service, and find it rather redundant if anyone is ever “required to” by either law, community group, or church to perform said services. If it’s used as a punishment in other words, it ceases being really community service and is more of a sentence for the said violator to carry out.
Growing up in a rather sheltered, yet modest environment, didn’t provide me many opportunities to perform said services. In fact, the chances of me leaving the house for purely recreational purposes was often seen as absurd growing up. Nevertheless, by the time I reached high school, it was time to began enriching the life of others through said community service endeavors.
By my sophomore year of high school I was the Web Tech for The Volunteers of Orange County, a club founded by my sister, with the primary purpose of performing community service. It was much like Key Club in a sense, except it was started by my sister to be an extracurricular boost for her college applications (let’s be honest here). Maybe it did help, because she got into UCLA!
Volunteers of Orange County
As web-tech I created and managed the website of the organization. With roughly 10 members, we went around performing some random tasks all over the community, which included:
Environmental Nature Center (We helped a Carnival, Kind-of)..
Community Action Partnership of California (We packed boxes).
Huntington Beach Tree Society (We planted trees).
Salvation Army Christmas Warehouse (We sorted gifts into various boxes).
Ronald McDonald House (We cleaned a house).
OC Aids Walk. (We walked).
By the time my sister left, I knew I had to take control of the club and thus by popular vote, became President.
And thus, more events occurred, which started off with a ton of people(30-40ish), but quickly drifted into nothingness as the year progressed.
Discovery Science Center (We cooked hot dogs, greeted patrons, and had a blast!)
Miles Square Regional Park Public Lands Day (Manual labor! Lots and lots of manual labor).
St. Polycarp (We helped various vendors).
Auxiliary (We reorganized shelves, moved things around, and packed a ton of boxes).
Basic Needs (We moved things around…)
Orange County Food Bank (packed food into boxes, assembly line style)!
Mile Square Park Public Lands Day (We walked around assisting anyone that needed help at the event).
MS Walk (We helped clean up after the MS Walk).
Aids Walk (We walked for Aids, yet again).
Beach Cleanup (We cleaned the beach for roughly 20 minutes, and then played).
Muckenthaler Center (We had various tables situated outside, and we greeted patrons, and help set up the special cross-cultural event.)
And thus, my Senior year of high school came. I realized being President was too much work (especially since I did the work of the entire cabinet). So, I sat back and became Vice President for the following year. However, since the President was often super busy, I ended up having to do much of the work anyway….
Fullerton College Film Festival (We timed films for students competing in a mini-film/skit festival).
Easter VOC Event (We played with kids, and set up special activities for them to engage in).
Rancho’s 50th anniversary: We helped set it up. Not that many attendees sadly….
The Fullerton Museum (We played and did arts and crafts with kids).
So, by the time college rolled around I quickly became lazy, and failed to participate in practices of volunteering. My freshman year of college was spent 24/7 bonding with my suitemates instead of anything else, but I largely remained committed to community service starting my sophomore year of college.
A.S.K. (Active Students for Kids)
One of the primary clubs I volunteered with was ASK, where we each went to Bay Park Elementary School every week for several hours to tutor little kids. I did one on one tutoring for the first quarter, and then got placed in a classroom for the second quarter. The benefits? It allowed me to escape my apartment for several hours a week for some self-fulfilling community service. The drawbacks? Waking up at 8am in the morning….
I also volunteered at a few WAVE events (Warren Active Volunteer Enthusiasts) while living on campus in Warren. However I tended to be preoccupied with other clubs, namely PAW (Programming at Warren), & ICRA (Inter-College Residents’ Association).
UCSD Cares
I was also the Marketing Chair for UCSD Cares, in charge of promoting the week-long event, dedicated to fundraising and striving to raise awareness and inspire action for local, national, and global social issues (such as poverty).
And yet, community service was rare at UCSD for me, merely because I was so preoccupied with other things. I did manage to do some more by the end of Senior year, namely in volunteering for Hands on San Diego, and at the San Diego Food bank. Here’s an unfortunate picture of me volunteering:
Tzu Ching
On Various Sundays, I would go to Oceanside with a rather Asian organization, “Tzu Ching” to read to little kids. And by read, I made them compete with one another to make things more interesting: in terms of figuring out math problems, and figuring out state capitals. Needless to say, I was their favorite.
The Ron Paul Revolution.
And though many people might disagree with me, I truly believe in my efforts to secure Ron Paul the white house was a form of civic participation, and also a form of community service. I truly believe he will help more people than anyone else could (those dying in the middle east EVERYDAY due to perpetual war and bloodshed, the innocent that get placed in prisons everyday due to the failed war on drugs, and the millions more being robbed of the value of their money due to the fiat currency and federal reserve system within the United States). I campaigned hard for him, even going so far as to travel to the very state of Iowa (first in the nation caucus). Even though my efforts failed, I did convince and educate many people on the evils of the Federal Reserve system, and why our financial system is likely to collapse (within this lifetime). I can only hope in 2016 America wakes up before it’s too late.
Circle K.
Finally at Cal State Fullerton I have joined Circle K in an effort to continue my community service efforts, or at least be more dedicated to it. With this organization, I am able to go to various dramatically FUN and well-organized efforts catered to not only the needs of the community, but to my own personal needs in terms of what I want to do to help the people around me. Circle K helps to intertwines the foundations of service with equally rewarding friendships and fellowship with others. I’m happy to say I thoroughly enjoyed my first year at CSUF mostly due to my interactions with Circle K. Not only did I go to nearly every service project every weekend, I went to training conferences, workshops, every single meeting, and attempted (my best) to make friends with everybody in the club. It’s debatable how involved I will be next year when I officially start my student teaching, but Circle K will always have a special place in my heart.
I hope by the time I’m old and retired I will still have the heart and drive to give back to the community.
